Television and/or radio programs are currently transmitted over the air, over cables, by way of satellites, and/or the like. Regardless of how television and/or radio programs are transmitted to customers, there is a desire to determine the audience of such programs. Thus, television and/or radio receivers are currently metered by existing channel meters in order to determine the channels to which such receivers are tuned by statistically selected panelists. This channel information is used, at least in part, to assemble television and/or radio rating reports. Such rating reports typically provide information such as each program's share, or percentage, of the television and/or radio audience during the time that the corresponding program was transmitted.
Audience rating information is potentially useful in a wide variety of areas. Advertisers may wish to use audience rating information in order to determine an appropriate cost for the channel time which they purchase for advertising their products. Broadcasters, such as network broadcasters, independent broadcasters, cable operators, and the like, may wish to use audience rating information as a factor in determining the amount which they should charge for the channel time which is to be purchased by advertisers or as a factor in making program selection and scheduling decisions. Performers may wish to use audience rating information in helping them to determine reasonable compensation for their performances or to determine residuals which they may be owed for past performances.
Several different methodologies are employed in order to acquire audience rating information. In one such methodology, diaries are manually maintained by panelists. Thus, the panelists are required to enter into the diaries the programs to which they tune their receivers. Diaries, however, present a number of problems. For example, panelists may forget on occasion to enter their program selections into their diaries. Also, diaries are manually distributed by the ratings company, manually maintained by the panelists to which they are distributed, and manually retrieved by the ratings company so that the data contained therein may be analyzed in order to derive audience rating information therefrom. This manual process is time consuming and labor intensive. Moreover, it is often necessary to provide audience rating information on the day of, or the day following, the transmission of a program to end users. The diary methodology is an impediment to such a rapid turnaround time.
In another methodology, an audience meter is physically connected to a receiver to be metered. The audience meter automatically determines the channel to which the metered receiver is tuned. The audience meter also typically includes a set of switches each of which is assigned to an individual panelist of a selected household. The switches are operated by the panelists of the selected household in order to signal the audience meter that the panelists of the selected household have become active members of the audience. Accordingly, the audience meter not only provides information identifying the channels to which the metered receiver is tuned, but also provides information relating to the demographics of the audience.
This audience meter works reasonably well since it reduces the active participation of the panelists in the metering process. This audience meter also works reasonably well since the data stored by the audience meter may be electronically retrieved. Because the data is electronically retrieved, the data may be retrieved more frequently and easily than in the case of diaries. That is, the audience meter includes a modem connected to a transmission system, such as the public telephone system. Periodically, a ratings company instructs the audience meter to transmit its stored data to the ratings company. This transmission can be prompted as often as the ratings company desires. Thus, diaries need not be manually distributed and retrieved, the panelists of the selected households are not required to manually enter program information into the diaries, and tuning and demographic data may be retrieved as frequently as is desired.
However, such audience meters also have some problems associated with them. For example, the sophisticated receiver equipment in use today makes the determination of actual channel numbers very difficult. This sophisticated receiver equipment may include a television which is arranged to receive programs distributed by satellites, cables, VCRs, and over-the-air antennae. Since at least some of these programs are passed to the television over a predetermined channel, such as channel 3, the determination of the actual number of the channel carrying the program being viewed is indeed very difficult.
Furthermore, even when audience meters are able to accurately determine the actual channel numbers of the channels carrying the programs chosen by the selected panelists for reception, such audience meters determine only these channel numbers. These audience meters do not identify the programs chosen by the selected panelists for reception. In order to identify chosen programs based upon the channel information retrieved from the audience meters, a ratings company often stores program tables. These program tables identify, by channel, date, and time, those programs which networks, cable operators, and the like, are expected to distribute to their customers. Thus, by use of these program tables, programs may be determined based upon the channels to which the metered receivers are tuned.
Because program tables have been typically assembled manually, and because program tables are assembled from program schedule information usually acquired before the programs are actually transmitted, errors may arise if the program schedule is incorrectly entered and/or if the program schedule changes between the time that the program tables as entered and the time that the receivers are metered. Furthermore, there is considerable labor involved in acquiring program schedule information and in assembling program tables from this information.
Accordingly, program verification systems have been devised in order to automatically determine the programs which are actually transmitted to end users. Program verification systems typically involve either the detection of embedded program codes or the use of pattern matching. Embedded program codes uniquely identify the programs into which the program codes are embedded so that their detection in a transmitted program may be used the verify which programs were transmitted, over which channels the programs were transmitted, and during which time slots the programs were transmitted. In pattern matching, sample patterns (which may alternatively be referred to as signatures) are extracted from each of the programs as they are transmitted during each time slot and over each channel. These sample patterns are correlated with reference patterns which were previously extracted from those programs. Matches then indicate which programs were transmitted during which time slots and over which channels. This information may be used to electronically generate a program table or may be used to simply verify that programs were transmitted. However, program verification systems using embedded program codes have the problem that not all programs contain embedded program codes, and program verification systems using pattern matching have the problem that they are expensive to support.
Moreover, current audience meters are physically connected to the tunable receivers that they meter. Therefore, such audience meters are incapable of metering receivers which are remote from fixed locations of the selected panelists' tunable receivers. These locations are typically the homes of the selected panelists. Thus, if a selected panelist may be viewing, or listening to, a program being received by receiver which is located outside of the selected panelist's home, such as at a sports bar, at the home of a friend, or in an automobile, the fact that the panelist is in the audience of a program to which a non-metered tunable receiver is tuned will go unrecorded. The failure to record this event distorts the audience rating information ultimately generated relative to that program and the programs with which it competed.
The present invention solves one or more of the above described problems.